Edge of Town
by YFWE
Summary: Apologizing was never one of Nick Wilde's strong suits.


**Wrote another one-shot instead of trying to move along the multi-chapter stuff I'm doing. Because that's how you get new readers, right?**

 **Uh, anyway, thanks for checking this out?**

 **Edge of Town**

She almost had not come, but for good reason, she thought: she was out of clean pants.

And while there were many things about Judy Hopps that comprised her personality and entire being, one, she felt, rose above most others: she tended to only wear pants. Not shorts; they were fine, but she had developed the slightest distaste for them when she was younger and beginning to help out in the fields of Bunnyburrow more often, a chore that practically required all extremities to be covered up, lest you came back in for supper with a dozen cuts from paper-thin leaves and bites from creatures whose teeth, most doctors agreed, should not impact with flesh, fur-covered or otherwise.

Oh, and dresses, absolutely not. Special occasions only, and even then, she often felt like a stranger in her own skin, some faux-refined country bumpkin trying to impress something or other, even if she was, for starters, a city slicker and had always been a bit of one deep down even before she grew up and fled to Zootopia to start a career in law enforcement. To boot, dresses were far from something only worn at galas, dances or spiffy undertakings; shoot, a quarter of Zootopia wore them regularly, even on cloudy, mundane-seeming days.

But no, pants. Sweatpants, yoga pants, jeans – those were her sweet spot. And she was out of clean ones, having intended to do laundry that night… or the next… maybe the night after that. Who could say for sure? It was Thursday evening, the start of a two-day break from work before heading back to the grind Sunday, a day during which most would be spent overseeing the flow of foot traffic at a parade honoring the birthday of Zootopia's first mayor. Grunt work, mostly, but precinct one had drawn straws – as it often did for such occasions – and the rabbit, along with Grizzoli, were deemed unlucky by the fates this time around.

As such, Judy's intention had been to lounge the whole weekend, with nothing on her calendar until Sunday. Well, nothing except laundry, but that was a given. It had been a month, and she had about hit the limit on the amount of times clothes could be worn before it became a bit of a problem.

Instead, her phone had buzzed once, twice, three times on the edge of her nightstand as Judy, home two hours from her 9-4 shift at the Zootopia Police Department that day, let out a groan she swore Bucky and Pronk next door would have heard had they been home. Phones – or hers, at least – only vibrated in that pattern for one reason and one reason only. Not because someone was calling, because there would have been more than three buzzes. Not email, which tended to make its presence known in one long desk-shaking noise that emptied the contents of her non-work email address onto her phone because, for reasons she kept forgetting to investigate, it did so almost every hour on the hour rather than allowing each message to come in on its own time.

These were text messages, and very specific texts, because Nick Wilde was biologically incapable of sending one long message. They needed to come in short, quick spurts, as though he only had a five-second time limit on each entry before a finger absolutely had to, under all circumstances, wander to the send button. Three-sentence text? Three messages. Five? A sudden blitzkrieg of buzzes that would about shake the recipient's phone off whatever surface on which it lay. And so on.

Those text messages brought Judy to her present location, even though she nearly convinced herself to stay in. She was still mad at Nick, and the hardened, rational part of her brain implored her to reconsider, that two days of silence had not been enough.

It annoyed her that he had this effect on her, mostly because she was fairly certain he was aware of it and deliberately dangled that fact over her head. Then again, Judy felt the opposite could be true as well; who, after all, had relented to switching their morning coffee runs to Hi-Collar instead of Snarlbucks, despite a certain fox's protests? She had won her own battles too. He had just secured this one.

Splotches of yellow and magenta littered the evening sky among low-hanging clouds that signaled a front long past. Rain had come with it, the most so far in September, and it had left certain grassy areas of Zootopia a muddy or waterlogged mess, sometimes both. Where she was heading had its share of lawns, or seemingly random pockets of grass and foliage that might have constituted an unkempt field before industrialization took hold. But there was also a plethora of warehouses, abandoned buildings and other general minutiae of industrial areas she recalled from her only other visit to their meeting place, and given the current time's proximity to sundown, she was skeptical.

Still, there he was, as promised, right on the bridge under which she had found him once, reclining lazily months ago with shades, drink and all, before retreating under cover of the tunnel beneath them. That, of course, occurred just prior to the moment when bunny and fox became friends again.

No sunglasses this time; even an Aviators-wearing fox who swore by the brand as Nick did had his limits, though his current pair rested snugly within his shirt pocket. He did look the ideal part, though: arms crossed, one leg languidly resting across the other, tail shifting slightly behind him. A smug, half-lidded grin, too, which did not fit the occasion, but Judy expected nothing less.

"Took you long enough," was his first greeting, because, Judy thought, of course it was.

"The Marshlands are pretty far from my apartment, Slick. Way farther than yours. Especially when you're taking me to the edge of civilization as we know it."

Nick either attempted to suppress a snicker or laughed with the intention of making it appear so, a bit of a mocking gesture but Judy let it pass, on one condition. _Strike one_ , she noted mentally.

"The edge of civilization, my dearest Officer Hippity Hopps, is in the Meadowlands, or so I'm told because I've never actually left the city. Frankly, I'm not sure anywhere else exists."

"You're right, I somehow made up Bunnyburrow," she said, pausing a few steps from the fox on the bridge. "The majority of the world's rabbit population is actually underground. Most of us live in the sewers. Good work. You might make detective yet."

"An ingenious way to avoid paying taxes, if I do say so myself."

"Don't get any ideas. I know that's a pastime of yours."

There was a retort on Nick's tongue, but he choked it down with a slightly more benevolent grin accompanying the aftertaste. "Well, if nothing else, it got you on the city bus system. I hear you're a subway diehard."

Nodding, Judy replied, "I'd like to keep it that way, too. But I figured whatever's all the way out here must be pretty important if my partner decided to speak his first words to me since Tuesday that weren't job-related in order to get me here."

"Well, you see, it was my partner that started the vow of silence—"

"And I am fairly certain my partner knows exactly why."

Nick unfolded his arms from his chest and thrust his paws into his pockets. "Right, so, you wanna see?"

Judy returned a jaded stare that relayed the fox but one message: get on with it.

Making a clicking sound with his tongue, Nick turned on his heel and faced the small cluster of trees to the bridge's right that lined the path that eventually traveled beneath the bridge.

"Follow me then, rabbit," said the fox. "Let's see if I burned down any trees."

She chose to ignore that final comment for the time being, mostly because she was certain he would not give her a straight answer about what he meant even if she tried.

Following at a few steps behind Nick, Judy peered through the ever-enveloping dusk at the tunnel as they passed it. Nick's chair was still there, and judging by the discarded food wrappers and drink containers that littered the ground around it, so had he, sometime recently. She could not recall him mentioning the place since she had found him there last, at Finnick's behest.

Her head snapped back forward when she heard the fox snicker.

"Random bursts of laughter aren't exactly normal or encouraging, Nick."

"Nah," he called, head remaining facing forward. "I was just thinking about what this would look like to someone passing by: a fox leading a poor, defenseless bunny into the woods."

"Poor and defenseless, huh?" He was nearing strike two.

"Oh, _I_ don't think that, Carrots. _They_ would. You're not poor at all."

There it was.

"If they remember anything from the news two weeks ago…"

"…don't say it."

"…from when the security footage leaked to ZNN of me taking down that rhino by The Docks while my partner cowered in the corner…"

"He charged me! You saw it!" whined the fox without any semblance of snark for the first time that evening.

Judy shrugged, glancing over the tiny nails of her left paw like she was checking for dirt. "Someone should've paid more attention at the academy during close-combat training, then."

They walked in silence for a few moments, Nick leading them through a small path in the trees. Judy could see the faintest of lights ahead of them, but its source was blocked by distance and the fox's body.

"You're… snarkier than usual," he said finally.

"Gee, I wonder why."

She heard him intake breath as though he had the intent of saying something more, but a light sigh was all that followed, blending with the rustling of leaves surrounding them. Autumn was nearing again; Judy could smell it in the air.

The darkness brought about by the setting sun and small tree band caused her to nearly run right into Nick when he stopped, right paw raised.

"Before you ask," the fox stated lowly, barely above a whisper, "what you are about to see is indeed illegal in this part of town, and yes, we are cops, so the irony is not lost on me."

"Wh-what do you… Nick, I swear…" stammered Judy, certain Nick was about to strike out and mentally preparing herself to perform an about-face and leave.

But before she could do anything of the sort, Nick stepped aside to reveal a small, crackling fire.

Normally, open flames in the city were reserved for afire barrels in the wintertime and around Tundra Town, either legal and city-approved or otherwise. Beyond that, Zootopia's city laws generally prevented such fires in public spaces throughout the city. Backyard residential fire pits were fine, as were those of businesses. But it prevented any regular mammal and their cousin from heading out to a municipal park or even some grassy field in the Meadowlands or Rainforest District from striking up a blaze. Arson cases notwithstanding, there had been too many uncontrolled fires started by citizens decades before that caused the city to finally put its foot down, Judy recalled from a newspaper clipping she read during a research session at the library in those months when Nick was at the academy and she had little to do otherwise.

So, Nick was correct: illegal, no matter how far from the city center they currently were. She would have been excited at his recollection of city law had he not been unceremoniously trampling on it right before her eyes, like a public urination case in which a mammal announced to his buddy how many things police could cite him for as he leaned against an apartment building and went for it anyway.

There it was, regardless, a little fire, probably too small to be considered a bonfire but close to it. Two logs were pulled up on either side, each of which able to seat two small mammals, Judy reckoned. Other logs were piled nearby, undoubtedly fuel for the blaze once the current wood supply ran its course. The fire stood on a patch of land that was covered in dirt rather than grass, with an oblong oval of rocks surrounding the makeshift pit to protect the exposed roots of the trees around them.

On the ground nearby sat a cooler, one Judy recognized from the time or two they had taken a picnic in the park, the letters W-i-l-d-e written crudely on one side, a byproduct of its age, as Nick had owned it at least since before his teenage days. Impossibly old, Judy called it, much to the fox's irritation.

"So, uh…" Nick spoke again, interrupting Judy's reverie, "how 'bout it? Is it like the ones back home?"

And only then did Judy realize the sentiment. A wave of heat rushed over her that had nothing to do with the warmth emitted from the teeming flames in front of them.

Her response was short and curt: "Sit down."

Nick grinned – she thought she might have seen a hint of relief at his snout – as he obliged, pulling the cooler to him across the dirt, a small scraping sound accompanying its movement. "I plugged Old Faithful here," he said, indicating the cooler and the small crack in the plastic on the far edge. "Everything should have kept cool this time."

The rabbit took a seat opposite Nick, gazing into the fire and then back at the fox. "Whatcha got in there this time?"

Popping open the cooler, Nick reached a paw inside, fishing around among cubes of ice before pulling out two bottled Buck Lights. "If you'd like?" he offered, cracking open one for himself.

"Trying to get me drunk won't get me to accept your apology if it's half-assed, dumb fox."

"First of all, if one of these," he wiggled the unopened bottle in his paw, "gets you inebriated, Carrots, color me ashamed, smaller mammal or not. But if you insist," he reached back inside the cooler with a free paw, having set down his own drink, "I've got soda…"

"The beer's fine, Nick. Hand it over – _hand it over_ , don't throw it."

"You're no fun."

Judy took a long swig of her drink before carefully placing it on the ground in case a root or pebble upset its balance. Nick copied, though his first sip was a bit heftier.

"All right, then," announced the rabbit, crossing a leg over her knee. "I see what you're getting at here, and while I appreciate that you've been paying attention for once…"

Nick scoffed. 

"…I'd like to know why I shouldn't be worried that we're violating not just the city's open flame policy but also its open container law," she said, lifting her drink.

The fox, shrugging, said, "Easy. You know this is precinct thirteen's territory, right?"

"Out this far? Yeesh."

"Uh huh. Well, you remember Barry Arcturo? Met on the Finnegan case, play cards with him and some of his buds from twelve and thirteen from time to time."

After Judy nodded her recognition, Nick continued, "Let's just say he owed me a favor, and since tonight was his patrol night out here, I happened to call it in."

"You don't say. And the whole precinct's aware?"

"They try not to come out here often. Why else do you think this was my happy place for so long?"

"Fair. So, the favor?"

"Accept my apology and I'll tell you."

"You'd have to actually apologize for that to happen."

Nick winked. "Sly bunny."

"Emotionally stunted fox."

The sun had completely set by then, but it barely mattered, the fire all the light either needed. Judy's attention had occasionally been drawn to the road from which they came, but not even one pair of headlights had motored past since they arrived.

Judy took another drink, rendering her bottle about half empty, before speaking again. "I didn't tell my parents, by the way."

Nick's ears perked up. "Oh?"

"You know, about what you said. Like I said I would."

"Ah, so an empty threat."

"I still get cell service out here, so it doesn't have to be."

He waved his paws in front of his face. "No, no," he protested, "that won't be necessary. I appreciate you, uh… thanks."

"Uh huh. But it was still a nasty thing to say."

"Even for a joke?"

Sensing Judy's glare, Nick lowered his ears against his head. "Fine. Even for a joke."

He reached into the cooler, having already downed his first drink.

"Ah, I get it," Judy commented shortly.

"Eh?" asked the fox, cracking open the bottle.

"It's not me you wanted drunk."

"That right?

Judy nodded, peering at Nick's figure, his head thrown back as he ingested more of the liquid. "The only way you'll apologize is if you've had a few yourself."

"…I resent that remark, Carrots."

"Sure, but you didn't deny it."

She thought she heard him growl for a moment – not in a threatening manner, just low, guttural, a frustrated noise. But she did not care. He needed to understand.

Nick looked into the sky, which held in its midnight blue canvas the occasional sprinkling of stars against the light pollution discharged by Zootopia's imposing skyline.

"Maybe I'll just go out there sometime, then."

She had not expected him to say it.

"Go… where?" she asked, even though she knew the answer.

"Well, it occurs to me I've never seen a full sky of stars. Don't they get that out in Bunnyburrow?"

"We do. I'd lay outside sometimes, thinking about the view, what was up there," Judy said, her tone softening. "My bedroom window had a great vantage point, too. I'd call us blessed."

"Should spread the wealth," the fox stated, his eyes continuing to follow the invisible lines between each little light that made up the brightest of constellations.

"Well… then come."

He glanced at the rabbit, emerald meeting amethyst for one of the first times that night, hues alight by the crackling fire before them.

"You'd like that?"

"The company would be nice. Usually when I head back it's the same old, same old. Showing someone around is a little different."

Nick stretched his legs, taking care to rest his paws close to the fire but far away enough that they were in no danger of a burn. A satisfying popping noise escaped his joints.

"And I can show you how wrong you are," she added pointedly.

He frowned, rolling his eyes. "Ugh, Carrots, what do I have to do…"

"Apologize."

"Fine, fine."

Judy's ears raised slightly as Nick drew his legs back underneath him and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin upon one paw.

"I…" he started, "wait, another drink."

"Cheese and crackers," muttered Judy, slapping a paw to her face as the fox took another swig.

"I'm sorry."

"Wow, that must have been hard for you."

"You're milking it."

Smiling, Judy leaned the side of her face against a paw. "Yes, yes, I am. What are you sorry for?"

Nick groaned. "C'mon."

"I can only assume it's for making me pay for the last three coffee runs, Nicholas."

"Fiiiiine," the fox whined. "Not everyone in Bunnyburrow either married their cousin or is a byproduct of someone who did."

"Good fox."

"Only most o—"

"I'd shove that bottle back into your mouth if I were you," Judy interrupted, and Nick heeded her warning. "Pass me another when you're done," she added, setting her empty container on the ground behind her log.

It had taken Nick a few moments to do this, mostly because his apology had been followed by perhaps the quickest downing of alcohol Judy could recall ever seeing, and that included her days at the police academy as well as when her cousins from Deerbrooke County visited when she was younger.

She caught herself staring lazily into the fire when Nick spoke again, snapping her out of her trance.

"Huh?" she asked, having not heard the question.

Nick sighed. "I said, what is it with you bunnies and bonfires, anyway?"

"Just telling you I liked them growing up wasn't enough?"

"Nope, doesn't satiate my rabid curiosity about your incredibly high-brow way of life out in the sticks."

"Watch it," she warned, waving a paw finger at him like a metronome. "It's just… it brings me back home. Reminds me of simpler times."

"Sure, but a lot of things do that," the fox noted after another drink.

Judy shrugged with a quick nod. "You've got a point, I guess. But bonfires back home… there was something about them. Because it wasn't just us, you know?"

"Not just your 200-whatever brothers and sisters. Suddenly this got a lot less quaint."

"The neighbors came by – well, the closest neighbors we had," she continued, ignoring him. "Some of our relatives from around town. My friends from school, maybe. And we'd all just… the adults would sit around, but the kids would play all sorts of games in the barns and out in the fields."

Nick smiled. "Let me guess, cops and robbers."

"How'd you know?" the bunny asked with a sly glance.

"Intuition."

"But then, as I got older, it was nice to just sit around the fire, tell stories, talk about life. Someone always brought some good food, and Mom had this fantastic carrot juice she'd sprinkle a little cinnamon into just for the night."

"…that doesn't sound half bad," the fox admitted.

"I bet if you came with me, they'd make you something blueberry-flavored."

"You know I like things other than blueberries, right?"

"Please. It's all you ever buy from the farmer's market on the weekend. Your apartment's full of them."

"Yeah, well, I – oh, whatever." He raised a paw and waved it around the small clearing in which they sat. "Sorry that this one's a little less… sprightly."

"Oh, it's…" she glanced up again at the stars, pausing for a moment, "…great. No, don't give me that look. It is."

"But…" added Nick, leaning forward a bit, paws digging into the wood on either side of him. When she did not respond, the fox drew his own conclusion: "It makes you miss home more."

He was beside her a few moments later – or was it a few minutes? The realization was something that came from within, clawed its way out even though she had not known it was inside, and she sat there puzzling over it, considering it so deeply that she missed seeing Nick arise from his spot on the opposite log to take a seat next to her. Judy slid her body down the log a bit when she felt his warmth beside her, not because she was attempting to evade him but so that both of them could fit on the wood cozily.

Such could be her life. Sometimes, Judy could become so focused on one aspect of her life, or perhaps a small handful of things like some exclusive club to which she diverted all her attention, that she surprised herself at certain things when they finally bubbled up to the surface. Like then, when it finally occurred to her that she was homesick. Or a few weeks before, during her and Nick's most recent picnic in the park, when…

"You haven't even been there in a while, have you?" he asked, cutting across the silence.

Looking down at her paws, which rested in her lap, Judy shook her head. "No. It was early spring."

"Tell me a little more about it."

She pulled her gaze from her lap to meet his own. Nick had not exactly moved to comfort her per se, but he was there regardless, staring back down at her with the slightest of smiles at his mouth. His paws were placed against the log, one drumming minutely but noticeably at his side, not far from Judy's waist.

"You've gone from deflective to caring about my personal life, with an actual apology thrown in," the bunny pointed out with a knowing grin. "What've you done with Nick Wilde?"

"Hush," he murmured. "Relish it."

"Well, around this time of year there were a lot of bonfires, not just at our place. And in town they had this big one out by the school before homecoming every year, right before the football game."

"Ah, so the bunnies played football too. I'd've pegged you as a soccer species," Nick said.

"OK, first of all, not just rabbits live there. But you're kind of right; we were much better at soccer. Except the donors to the school cared way more about football, so that was that. I guess the high school used to have a great team when my parents went there. I think they thought throwing more money at the program would actually fix things."

Nick turned slightly so that he could face Judy a little more but stayed atop the log. Judy felt his tail brush blithely against her back, sending the smallest shiver through her body against the heat of the fire. "You don't strike me as the type who went to too many games, though, Carrots."

"Eh. I went to about half of them a year. Less as I got older."

"Police procedurals?"

"Boyfriend."

She had hoped the word would cause the jolt that it did, a quick tic that she assumed came from one of the fox's hind paws smacking up against the bottom of the log on which they sat. If he had still been seated opposite her, she may never have noticed.

Nick had been able to mask his reaction elsewhere, most of all his face, because his response, punctuated by a barked laugh, was fairly characteristic. "Hopps got busy in high school after all. Looks like I lost the bet with Wolford."

"Nice, Nick. I appreciate the vote of confidence," said Judy with a smirk. "Why's that so shocking, anyway?"

"Well, rabbit, let's see: you haven't even gone out on a date with a soul since I've known you…"

"Which hasn't been _that_ long," she noted, even though, in dating years, he had a point.

"You don't have any dating apps on your phone…"

"I told you to stop going through my apps."

"And you've never, not once, shown the slightest interest in any little bunny you and I have come across."

"That's because we're on the job most of the time together, Nick. Unlike you, I at least _attempt_ to maintain an air of professionalism."

Nick snickered. "There are other ways to know…"

She wrinkled her nose. "So, you're following my romantic life that closely, is that it?"

That shut him up. A rare feat. She grinned.

"Since you asked," she started again, "his name was Aaron Longfellow. Family friend. And it was just senior year."

"Uh huh. And how about him, Carrots? The one that got away?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No. I mean, I… _liked_ him, he liked me. But it was just that generic kind of high school love. We weren't star struck sweethearts and we realized before graduation it was never actually going to _go_ anywhere. Sometimes I guess you just grow up with a person, see them change, know you're changing too and… instincts tell you something. Even if it doesn't last."

Nick departed the log for a moment, grabbing the cooler from the other side of the flame and pulling it over to in front of them, plopping back down on the wood as he opened up two more drinks and offered one to Judy. She accepted.

"So, where's the lucky rabbit now?" he asked, taking a swig.

"His parents weren't doing too good a year or two after we graduated; his dad had arthritis, dunno about his mom. He always imagined himself on that family farm, though, never leaving, never going to college, anything like that. So I guess in a weird way that worked in his favor. He runs the place now. They farm radishes, mostly."

The fox scoffed, making a face like he had swallowed something sour. Judy rolled her eyes. "What now?"

"Radishes. Disgusting. You have poor taste in men."

"Oh, and I'm sure you know someone better for me," she countered.

"Nah, you've been a lost cause for a while. Since high school, it seems."

That deserved a sock on the shoulder, and she did not miss the opportunity.

"How many times did you hit Aaron like th—"

Another, harder, which elicited a pained reaction this time. "Ah! Jeez, ow. You haven't gotten to the part where you won the county boxing championship yet," grumbled the fox, massaging his right arm.

"No championship, just grew up with brothers."

"Cute. Will I get to meet them? _If_ I come," he added.

"Oh, so it's an if?" Judy asked, tapping her foot once on the ground as she popped open her next drink.

Nick shrugged. "Well, you know, my schedule and all…"

"Actually, you've got a point. With us paired together, I don't know if Bogo will ever let us on a longer break at the same time." And after she said those words, Judy thought about them harder and, yes, that was probably true, the more she considered it. Chief Bogo was notoriously stingy on vacation time as it was, and it seemed unlikely he would let off partners on the force all at once, whether their desk was full of case files or completely devoid of them. A day here and there was one thing, multiple days were another. Her heart sank a bit; even if it had not been confirmed that Nick would visit, her hope was suffering.

"I was joking, but I guess that's probably true."

He rose from the log again, this time padding over to the woodpile nearby. Judy realized why: the previous logs in their fire had nearly completely turned to ash, and the flame was dwindling. She took the opportunity to stretch her own limbs, raising her arms into the air and splaying her legs out in front of her.

"You wanna know more?" she asked as the fox plopped two fresh logs onto the fire, sizzling embers careening into the sky.

"About your scintillating romance with your high school sweetheart? Pass."

"You could tell me about yours…" she nudged.

"Harder pass."

"…all right, let's talk about work then."

She heard a gagging noise coming from Nick as he sat back down.

"Ah, but I thought that was your favorite topic."

"For the record, I'm trying to do some math in my head," he said as he took his spot next to Judy.

"Don't hurt yourself."

"Shh. You're off until Sunday, right?"

Tentatively, Judy nodded.

"I've got tomorrow off too. Saturday I'm 10-5. Back Sunday too."

"OK…"

Nick stood again, scratching under his chin with a paw as he paced nearby between the two logs astride the fire pit.

Furrowing her brow, Judy cocked her head. "You wanna… picnic again… or something?"

"Let's go to Bunnyburrow."

He was facing her now, gazing directly into her eyes, his paws raised in front of him as though they were offering the suggestion on a silver platter to her and all she had to do was accept.

Her heart leapt, even though…

"How would that work? You have to be back Saturday."

"Nononono, listen. The train takes, what, three hours between Bunnyburrow and Zootopia? A little less?"

"2:45. How do you know that?"

"Finnick and I had to pick you up from the station last time, remember? Because of the rain. You told me when you left and when you'd get there. So, _anyway_ , we leave here at 6 tomorrow morning, assuming there's a 6 a.m. train, get into town before 9, voila, whole day in Bunnyburrow."

The fox stared at Judy expectantly, though she was still trying to work out the logistics on her own.

"So… then you'd just leave that night?"

"Or that morning. Shoot down here, work a few hours, try to get off early if Buffalo Butt is feeling it. Catch another train back, maybe see more of those stars you rave about."

"Y'know, this is becoming quite the expensive trip for you, Slick…"

"Eh? No, I have a monthly train pass."

"You said you'd never been outside the city, why do you need a train pass?"

"You ask too many questions, Fluff."

Judy found her gaze wandering to the stars again, those she could make out through the tree line that engulfed the sky above them. And she thought of the same view, only from a different vantage point. And of her parents, looking up at the constellations like they did most nights, like they told her they had since they first started seeing each other. And of Nick, now beside her instead, seeing what she saw, perhaps thinking the same thoughts….

She realized she had been staring for quite a bit, because Nick had an expectant look across his countenance when she returned to earth, waving his paws in a circular motion as though it would get her to answer quicker. "Well?" he asked, his tone softer than before.

Slicking her ears behind her head, Judy raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Why wait until then? There's a train at 9."

Nick's features melted into an admiring grin, followed by a quick shrug. "Eh. I just threw new wood on. Wouldn't want it to go to waste."

"Oh, fine. Tomorrow at 6. If you think you can wake up in time."

She felt his warmth again as he rejoined her on the log; this time, his paw brushed ever so slightly against her side as it found its predisposed spot. She could not decide if the movement was deliberate.

"I'll make an exception," he said, picking up his bottle and, after eyeing it and noticing its emptiness, reaching for another. "Plus, you've worn those jeans at least six times now because it still has the ketchup stain from three weeks ago on it, so I know you need to do some laundry. I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. Hopps won't mind if you drag a load home, right?"

She was almost embarrassed for a split second, but she let it slide.

"Hand me another drink," the rabbit muttered, "and let me tell you a little about who you're going to meet this weekend, because I'm sure my parents will roll out the stops. Like Gideon Grey, since he's the only other fox my parents know and obviously that means you two should meet."

"Ah, another fox in the bunny's life before me? I'm just the sloppy seconds."

"Ugh. OK, so…"

 **END**


End file.
